Date
8-6-2025
Department
School of Behavioral Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)
Chair
Lisa Ansell
Keywords
Christian schoolteachers, COVID-19, in-person teaching, isolation, online platforms, resilience
Disciplines
Counseling
Recommended Citation
Geddes, Elizabeth Joy, "Christian Schoolteachers’ Shared Experiences of Learning and Teaching in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the East Coast of the United States" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7348.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7348
Abstract
This phenomenological study sought to better understand and describe the lived experiences of Christian schoolteachers who provided in-person instruction during COVID-19. Using a qualitative phenomenological design, 12 ACSI Christian schoolteachers from the East Coast of the United States were asked to share their stories of providing in-person instruction during the fall of 2020. While studies have explored the challenges and adaptations of public-school educators during COVID-19, there remains a significant gap in understanding the experiences of Christian schoolteachers who navigated in-person instruction amidst the pandemic. The gap highlights the need for focused research to capture the unique perspectives, challenges, and coping strategies of Christian schoolteachers who continued in-person instruction in the fall of 2020. The grounding theories for this study were social learning theory, social constructivism theory, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. These three theories helped identify key themes from participant experiences to integrate a universal description of the experiences for analysis (Dewi et al., 2025). The study bridged a critical gap in both empirical and theoretical literature by showing how educators in Christian schools responded not just with innovation, but with intentionality, resilience, and deeply rooted faith.
